Tag Archives: Fayetteville

The disaster the headline refers to is simply a busted forecast. Don’t worry about Fayetteville. Despite a dry forecast and forecasts that ranged from “sunny” to “partly cloudy” instability related to a system moving through the northern Plains kicked a little moisture south towards the Ozarks. This meant several things. More clouds, temperatures that were off by 4-7 degrees from the forecast and a ten minute window of light rain that threw everyone off by just a bit. There were three outlets that had the exact same forecast, and those three had the top spot when all was said and done. Accuweather, The Weather Service and Weatherbug ended with a tie.
Actuals: Saturday – High 88, Low 64
Sunday – Trace of rain, High 85, Low 72

Between forecasts in the Appalachians, were going to take a quick jaunt over to the Ozarks.

At 1153PM, CT, Fayetteville was reporting overcast skies with a temperature of 73 degrees. The remnants of Tropical Storm Bill is centered over southeastern Missouri. Fayetteville finds itself on the back end of this system, which is leading to the overcast conditions over the region. Fortunately, Bill has hooked up with a shortwave aloft, and is rocketing off to the northeast.
Another advantage to the departure of Bill is that it will draw the flow of Gulf moisture. Although there is a weak wave over the Upper Midwest, Gulf flow will not be transported through Fayetteville and the Ozarks. Expect instead that Fayetteville will stay dry the next two days. Not only that, but the humidity will be much more tolerable than June can be.
Tomorrow – Mostly cloudy, High 91, Low 67
Sunday – Partly cloudy, High 92, Low 73

Once again, the model nobody believed was the one that bore itself out. There were snow showers in the forecast in Fayetteville for a handful of outlets, as they anticipated a descending surface ridge producing some flurries in the Ozarks on Thursday. Instead, as guidance suggested, it was a dry day in Fayetteville, though there were a few sites nearby that did report snow. On the other hand, while the GFS kept all of the Red River Valley clear, other models, including the NAM in particular and the Euro to a lesser extent expected a wave moving down the Front Range to blossom as it rounded the base of the ridge and sock the Ozarks. Everyone kept Fayetteville dry on Friday. There was, in fact, a trace of snow. The GFS was very wrong, to the tune of 3-5 inches across the region. Despite issues with precipitation, some outlets did a great job with temperatures. Forecast.io had a perfect low yesterday, which catapulted them to victory.
Actuals: Thursday, High 33, Low 18
Friday – Trace of snow, High 20, Low 11

I have to admit, these two cities are further apart than I thought they would be. It’s a two day adventure to go from northeastern Ohio to northwest Arkansas, covering about 955 miles. The route is heavy on interstates, and we’ll cover ground at about 64.2mph. At that pace, we will net nearly 514 miles on Thursday and leave the rest for Friday. The Ozarks are very pretty, but I have never seen them snow covered.

DAY ONE (Thursday)
There is a batch of snow that has been a lot more efficient at producing snow accumulation in Upper Midwest. Snow totals of 3-5″ have been seen in Iowa and northern Illinois, which came as a minor surprise. The system is going to lose quite a bit of its bluster overnight. Significantly less intense, though road in coverage snow showers will stretch across our entire Thursday route as we depart. The system will continue to weaken, however, and we will likely see persistent snow come to an end as we cross into Indiana. That’s still a lot of Ohio in which we will see snow showers. This wave is going to stall behind the strong system off the east coast, so the drive will be cloudy, and there may be one or two stray flakes before we end in Brownstown, which is west of Effingham in Illinois.

DAY TWO (Friday)
You really couldn’t ask for a more different forecast guidances for the Red River Valley for tomorrow. I can’t say that enough. It’s mesmerizing. The NAM has snow and ice reaching across the Red River Valley while the GFS has absolutely nothing. This is only relevant for our arrival in Fayetteville, and the brightest weather minds in the business tend to agree that Fayetteville will be in the clear for our arrival. The rest of the drive should be pretty good too. Just be quick about filling your tank, because it will be awfully cold.

Things are going to get fairly dicey today for a large swath of the south, with snow and ice returning once again. Is Fayetteville one of those unfortunate locales?

At 1153AM, CT, Fayetteville was reporting a temperature of 39 degrees with clear skies. The Texas Hooker that promised to bring some significant snowfall to the southern United States was generating moderate snow as far north as Mena-Little Rock line, but posed no threat to the Ozarks this time around. Of more intrigue to Fayetteville should be the strong upper level trough diving through the Upper Midwest.
A pair of perturbations are riding the leading edge of the upper level trough as it digs into the Plains. The eastern perturbation will see much of its moisture leached by the Hooker that will nearly become a Nor’easter while the western wave will be sliding south along the Front Range, and will be a greater threat for the Texas Panhandle. Aloft, the jet will become more uniform, and work on shifting the upper level trough eastward, but at the surface, this will mean cold high pressure taking over on Thursday. The NAM and Euro are suggesting a little bit of cyclonic development at the base of the trough when the western wave reaches the area, however, it seems fairly unlikely that it will bring anything more than a few clouds to Fayetteville on Friday evening. There is a better chance for flurries tomorrow as the trough makes its first push into the region. With the advance of cold air, Tomorrows temperatures will be non-standard.
Tomorrow – Mostly cloudy, High 27, Low 18
Friday – Increasing clouds late, High 26, Low 9

Like I said, there is a better chance for snow tomorrow than on Friday, and it appears there is a sizable contingent that agrees with that sentiment. Here is the radar showing today’s snowy weather in central Arkansas.

Doesn’t it seem like we were just here? Say, we were! Anyhow, let’s see what the forecast holds.

At 853PM, ET, Fayetteville was reporting clear skies and a temperature of 45 degrees. A weak area of high pressure lies centered over the Carolinas, and though the ridge will break down, a stable airmass will remain in place through tomorrow.
A favorably tilted wave is moving through the southern Plains and into the Lower Mississippi Valley. The surface portion of this wave is presently in Texas and will organize over the Mississippi Delta through Friday morning. The system will then begin to steer to the east-northeast, on a bee-line for Fayetteville. By Friday evening, expect rain, isolated thunderstorms, and some wind. Early arriving overcast will keep temperatures in check.
Tomorrow – Mostly sunny, High 57, Low 37
Friday – Rain, thunderstorms and wind in the evening, High 48, Low 35

There was a lot of rain and a good threat for some cooler temperatures to begin the week this weekend in Fayetteville. The rain definitely came. There was nearly a half inch of rain in Fayetteville on Sunday, with the heaviest activity coming east of town, where flood warnings were issued for places like Goldsboro. The cold air never was able to infiltrate the eastern Carolinas, however. The high temperatures both Sunday and Monday ended up climbing into the mid 60s, which was about 5 degrees warmer than anyone had anticipated. The big thing that separated good forecasts from bad was the low temperature forecast. Those that erred tended to be too warm, while there was a cluster that was nearly perfect. The Weather Channel and Accuweather shared top honors for the day.
Actuals: Sunday – .43 inches of rain, High 64, Low 43
Monday – High 65, Low 34

Time to go! We’re taking a one day, 7 hour trip from Lancaster to Fayetteville. Most of the drive will take place on I-95, but our pace will only be 64.14mph, slowed down significantly by time served in the Baltimore-Washington area. It’s only 443 miles between the two towns, and we’re definitely going to see rain.

Rain will just be moving into the Lancaster area at around the time we leave tomorrow morning. It will be steady all the way to Baltimore, at which point it will become heavy. Assuming our Sunday pace stays the same, we will likely be driving in moderate to heavy rain through Virginia and to about Rocky Mount. It will begin to taper off fairly quickly as we head south from Rocky Mount to Fayetteville, and even if there is a little rain left over by the time we arrive in Fayetteville, at least we won’t be driving through it anymore.

We’re going down south to the Tar Heel State. Fayetteville is in the southern part of North Carolina, and one of the largest cities in the state. If you’re only interested in the weather, well then do I have some good news for you! Here comes the forecast.

At 553PM, ET, Fayetteville was reporting a temperature of 50 degrees with clear skies. The satellite remains clear at this hour, however just off the South Carolina/Georgia coast, there lies a field of developing cumulus clouds. This is in response to an upper level feature pivoting through the Great Lakes, inducing some surface instability off shore. Guidance is fairly consistent in its belief that a plume of moisture will develop over the eastern Carolinas tonight before feeding into a developing surface low off of Chesapeake Bay.
The axis of rain will extend from Philadelphia to Wilmington by tomorrow morning, and Fayetteville stands a chance of seeing a couple inches of rain through the day tomorrow if things play out as they have trended. As the upper level trough pivots into the area, expect the cooler air to force the rain off shore and into developing into something more organized. A drier evening is expected. Laminar, stable and generally pleasant conditions are in order for Monday.
Tomorrow – Rain, High 60, Low 42
Monday – Clearing and dry, High 59, Low 35

Everybody expected the significant drop in temperatures for Fayetteville as a cold front moved though, dropping the temps a solid 15 degrees between the 2 days. Some outlets completely whiffed on when the front would move through exactly, which lead to some very erroneous low temperature verifications. The passage was indeed a dry one, which proved to be the difference that pushed Accuweather to a narrow victory.

Older posts

Categories

My blog has recently been added to Science Blogs, which is part of one of the largest networks of blog directories on the Web. Please visit my blog's personal page to vote for my blog and comment to other blog users.